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A Passion for Fashion
2/23/2017 7:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
By Jim Sumner, GoDuke The Magazine
DURHAH, N.C.-- When Erin Mathias dreams of her post-Duke career, she dreams of New York, Los Angeles or Paris.
No surprise. Mathias is a rotation player on Duke's nationally-ranked women's basketball team and professional basketball opportunities abound, both domestically and internationally.
Her ambitions, however, are not on the court but on the runway. Specifically, the fashion runways, during fashion weeks in major cities. Mathias is a budding fashion designer.
Mathias is late to the fashion game. Basketball has been her consuming passion about as long as she can remember.
The 6-4 Mathias grew up in the Pittsburgh suburb of Fox Chapel. Her father Chris is 6-7 and played basketball at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Her mother Beth is 6-2. Older brother Matt is 6-9 and played at Grove City College.
“It was always part of my destiny to be tall,” Mathias quips.
She remembers being introduced to basketball when she was around three or four years old and started playing formally when she was in the third grade. There were other sports, such as soccer, softball and volleyball. She was a middle blocker on the volleyball court, a task ideally suited to developing her jumping abilities.
Mathias hooked up with the Western Pennsylvania Bruins when she was in the sixth grade. The Bruins are one of the nation's top AAU programs.
“It was sort of intimidating at first,” she recalls. “We'd go to a big tournament and see coaches like Pat Summitt in the stands and I was freaking out. But eventually it became normal and it got really fun.”
The Bruins won national age-group titles in 2010 and 2011 and Mathias' teammates went on to play at schools like Charlotte, Drexel and Duquesne.
Joanne P. McCallie was one of the coaches scouting those Bruins games. Mathias was a Duke fan, a Duke hoodie rarely far away.
Mathias accepted a scholarship offer from Duke as a freshman at Fox Chapel Area High School.
“My parents were extremely helpful,” she says. “Duke was my dream school. We had made many visits to the campus and I just loved it. It was sports, it was academics, it was everything. I was more worried about what my friends would think. But everyone was supportive. I had a target on my back (after the early commitment) but it made me play better. I had something to prove.”
Mathias continued to play for the Bruins and the Fox Chapel High School team. She missed her sophomore season after surgery on her right knee to fix patella tendonitis.
She recovered nicely, averaging 16 points, 13 rebounds, and five blocks per game as a prep senior. Mathias was named Pennsylvania Gatorade Player of the Year and Miss Pennsylvania Basketball.
College, though, was an adjustment.
Elizabeth Williams was a Duke senior when Mathias was a Duke freshman, and Williams was one of the best shot-blockers in NCAA history.
“She blocked my shots all the time,” Mathias says of Duke's practice sessions. “I had to fight. I learned a lot from practicing against her. I knew I had to get stronger. It made me better. But it wasn't easy.”
Mathias played 235 minutes as a freshman and 252 as a sophomore, showing flashes of the AAU and Fox Chapel star. But only flashes.
She had one problem — confidence. She would brood over mistakes, unable to put a bad play behind her.
But she fixed it.
“I'm feeling more relaxed this year,” she says. “My teammates have confidence in me and my coaches have confidence in me and that's settled me down. I'm proud of kind of getting over that. I'm still working on it but I'm getting there.”
Mathias has developed into a top-tier complementary player, a designation she embraces.
“I was a scorer in high school and I had to adjust,” she says. “I became more of a role player, setting screens, blocking out. I had to come to terms with it.”
Mathias doesn't need to have plays called for her. A typical game for her came in Chesnutt Hill, a 67-44 road win for Duke over Boston College. Mathias didn't score a point but helped Duke with six assists and five rebounds. She scored 13 points against Longwood, three steals against South Carolina, 10 rebounds at Liberty, finding a niche whenever a niche needs to be found.
Mathias has upped her minutes to 17 per game, more than double her first two seasons.
She's an especially skilled passer from the high post, using her height to see over defenders, while finding teammates on the blocks.
“Erin is much improved,” McCallie says. “She needs to keep giving us strength and physicality. Erin's versatility is very helpful to us.”
But basketball isn't the whole story. Mathias is majoring in visual arts and media studies, while working towards an innovation and entrepreneur certificate, ideal training for her post-playing career. She was Academic All-ACC last season.
Mathias says she dressed dolls as a girl but no more than most of her peers. Her interest in fashion is a more recent development but not a passing one.
“About two years ago, I went out and bought my first sewing machine and really started to design clothes,” she explains.
She took it to the next level last summer, putting together an internship in Manhattan with Charles Harbison, whose eponymous firm gained national attention when singer Beyoncé began showing off his work in high-profile public outings.
Duke has programs to help students find summer internships. But Mathias pulled this one off on her own.
“I follow fashion, especially New York Fashion Week. I reached out and their press people got back to me. I sent them a resume and we had a Skype interview.”
It went well. Mathias interned with Harbison from May 9 through July 1, leaving only because she needed to be back in Durham for the second session of summer school and a regimen of weight-training and pickup games.
She did the kind of things summer interns do: paperwork, order tracking, customer satisfaction. Entry-level rope learning.
But she saw enough to want more.
“It was partially what I expected. It's a collaborative industry but also a survival-of-the-fittest industry. I saw how difficult it is, how many things go into it. It's a lot of hard work.”
She says her background in competitive sports should help her in a competitive fashion environment.
The U.S. fashion industry is Manhattan-centric and that's fine with Mathias. She cobbled together temporary living arrangements, took the subway everywhere and found a park near the Hudson River, perfect for running and staying in shape.
“I really enjoyed it. I'm a city person. I love the hustle and bustle.”
When does Mathias go public? She's working with the Innovation and Entrepreneur Department on a fashion show this fall. She wants an outdoor show. She expects to have some teammates model. But it's still in the planning stages and hush-hush is the operative mode.
Mathias says she still thinks about playing professionally but is strongly leaning towards making the leap into the fashion world.
“Basketball has been my passion for a long time and it's still a passion,” she says. “But fashion is my second passion. I'll most likely head straight into fashion.”
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